[HN Gopher] Apple banned a pay equity Slack channel
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Apple banned a pay equity Slack channel
Author : jbredeche
Score : 245 points
Date : 2021-08-31 19:36 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| babesh wrote:
| Not all equities are the same in Apple's eyes. - not George
| Orwell
|
| I hope people aren't surprised. Apple has a very consumer
| friendly image but that is because the incentives are aligned.
| Behind the scenes, the knives come out: Apple labor fixing
| scandal, Apple caving to the FBI on end to end encryption, Apple
| playing favorites in the App Store, etc... These aren't one-offs,
| they are the culture.
| acomjean wrote:
| When I worked at "Big Defense Corp" we had 2 things that made it
| easy to tell who made what.
|
| - An online directory which included your title.
|
| - A list of salary ranges by title.
|
| The ranges actually were a little wide (they would overlap a
| little), but you basically could figure out what everyone was
| making.
| floren wrote:
| At my previous job at a national lab, we could access these
| charts that would show pay bands for each title, and had a dot
| for each employee in your department. Since you know your own
| salary, you could pretty easily see if you were being underpaid
| --although of course you'd need to take into account how long
| you had been in the position vs. your colleagues.
| m0zg wrote:
| I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, talking about pay is
| often counterproductive, as you never see the blood sweat and
| tears that went into someone's pay, you only see the end result
| and it seems "unfair". On the other hand, at Google, there's a
| gigantic spreadsheet where people share their comp, and it helped
| dispel some narratives like "women in the same positions are paid
| less" to some extent. It's not the same when the company itself
| shares the stats - you always know there are a million ways to
| lie with statistics. So there are positives and negatives to
| this.
|
| Were it up to me, I'd ban all such discussion. By all reasonable
| measures, FANG employees are paid more than enough. Focus on
| work, not on someone else's wallet. But it's not up to me, for
| better or worse.
| websap wrote:
| Nope, make pay transparent. At least people can have a fair
| discussion with their managers why they don't get paid the
| median amount at their level.
|
| So sick of companies promoting transparency in all engineering
| processes, but when it comes to pay it becomes this opaque
| thing that's also taboo to talk about.
| basisword wrote:
| I'd like to see how employees split on this. People always
| frame it as if it's the company fighting the employee want
| for transparency - but as an employee I do not want
| transparency (although that highly depends on the level of
| transparency we're talking about which is also rarely
| discussed).
|
| If this a vocal minority of employees that what transparency
| or a larger group?
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Curious why you don't want compensation transparency? That
| information asymmetry is a huge reason an employer has a
| negotiating advantage against you.
| m0zg wrote:
| How do you make _effort_ transparent though? If pay is
| conditioned on effort and productivity (which it arguably
| should be), how do you surface that explanation, rather than
| just the extremely inflammatory "this person makes $700K a
| year" number. For all you know this person might have made
| the company 10x the amount, whereas someone who "only" made
| $600K a year had effectively negative productivity. Without
| this context comp numbers are effectively useless.
| websap wrote:
| I'm mature enough to understand some people work harder /
| have greater output, etc. That's for my manager to explain.
| If I'm getting feedback that I'm doing well at my level but
| still being underpaid or not hitting the 90th percentile,
| than there's a disconnect between the feedback I'm
| receiving and the compensation.
|
| There's another problem in the industry that new hires get
| way higher salaries than tenured engineers. This allows me
| to understand what salaries are being paid to new
| engineers. It's hard for me to believe a new engineer
| coming into the org is more productive than me. This
| further allows me to make a case against my manager to
| adjust my pay.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| I agree with you on the issue with new hires getting paid
| more. It's market forces at work, but... yeah that shit
| sucks.
|
| Regarding your first point I think you're a bit
| optimistic as to how well people take such a
| conversations. For example, doing well _at level_ (in my
| experience) means meeting expectations. There's no way
| someone meeting expectations should get 90th percentile
| comp for their level. So are you mature enough to accept
| that you're not good enough to warrant p90 comp?
| websap wrote:
| doing well is not meeting expectations. Meeting
| expectations, is well just meeting expectations. Doing
| well, is definitely exceeding expectations.
| m0zg wrote:
| As a (former) high level manager: your manager knows
| _exactly_ who her best people are, and she prays to dear
| god every day that they don't leave, because then she'd
| be SOL. This tends to lead to unequal distribution of
| rewards (and as some people in 2021 would say
| "inequitable" since the meme is now that everyone should
| be poor), but without this all business would collapse.
|
| Note that I'm not talking about "old boys network"
| situation here. That should be dealt with at the cultural
| level. I'm talking about some folks being just legit
| amazing and making more money than I do because of it.
|
| > I'm mature enough
|
| If that's the case, you're _way_ more mature than most
| people. Most people couldn't care less how valuable
| someone else is or what they do, if they make $1K/mo
| more.
|
| To some extent, the "levels" constrain the compensation
| ranges in most organizations. Those ranges get much wider
| the higher you are on the org chart, and sometimes
| disappear entirely for VPs and up. But this isn't about
| how much VPs get paid. This is about how much Joe from 2
| cubes down the hallway gets paid, and why that's
| "entirely too much" and "unfair".
|
| The best raises I ever got were due to changing jobs, not
| by pleading with my manager.
| websap wrote:
| > The best raises I ever got were due to changing jobs,
| not by pleading with my manager.
|
| Agreed. This really sucks about the company.
|
| > If that's the case, you're _way_ more mature than most
| people.
|
| I don't think so. If managers provide detailed feedback
| about what went right and what went wrong the correct
| expectations will be set.
| sroussey wrote:
| Make employee ratings from management and peers public too.
| tibbetts wrote:
| Talking about pay is pretty much always a win for workers. If
| people have an emotional reaction, maybe they need to do it
| more or maybe they have some unique need to opt out. Otherwise,
| it's the lowest effort way for workers to improve their
| outcomes.
| xt00 wrote:
| Why don't they just create a slack channel and pinned on that
| channel it says "hey here is a discord channel to go to..." Maybe
| the point of creating the channel actually is to get it banned so
| they can point to that for anti unionizing complaints?
| moate wrote:
| Set up honey-pots to demonstrate labor abuses? Now there's
| something I can get behind.
| duxup wrote:
| Anything could be a honey pot but they're already posting on
| a service hosted by their employer... weird concern at that
| point.
| perihelions wrote:
| Because it's their right. Why give that up for nothing?
| duxup wrote:
| Because doing it on Apple's slack channels gives Apple the
| identity of everyone and what they said? That seems like
| something you'd want to avoid.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Apple banned the channel, I'd be surprised if they actually
| wanted the sort of info you're suggesting they might be
| after. At the very least, it suggests Apple doesn't think
| there's much benefit in having that info.
|
| What do you think Apple would even do with it?
| tibbetts wrote:
| Apple already knows everyone's salary...
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| Presumably Apple would remove the pin for the same reasons.
| bob33212 wrote:
| I could see this gaining steam. Why would the activism stop with
| equal pay between men and women. Why not equal pay for
| everything. Who is going to stand up and say I think the Non-
| binary Black Cook in the cafeteria should be paid 60% less than
| the privileged white male programmer? Could AAPL afford to pay
| every employee 500k?
| hn-is-life wrote:
| Can someone please convince me: why should I want to talk about
| my pay with any of my colleagues? If I know how much you earn, if
| we are in separate teams, if you earn less than me I will not
| take you seriously; if you earn more than me I will give you all
| my attention since I want to be you and learn from you. If we are
| in the same team: if you earn more than me I will be jealous; if
| you earn less than me I will feel guilty.
|
| What the hell is pay equity good for me ? How can I feel better
| in any of those outcomes?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > if you earn more than me I will be jealous
|
| Maybe you take this info and say "hey boss, i noticed all the
| women on our team earn less than the men (of equal level) on
| average"
| beervirus wrote:
| Knowing these things can give you information to use in
| negotiations with your employer.
| Arete314159 wrote:
| They could start by posting surveys in women's bathrooms. If
| Apple is like other tech company's, the C suite folks will all be
| cis men and never go in the women's bathrooms.
|
| Once the women gather data they'd have to figure out how to do
| part 2, gathering men's data, in some equally sneaky fashion.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| This is why you do this sort of thing at the pub on your turf,
| not on your employers turf.
| allenu wrote:
| With many of us working from home, now all of our "normal day to
| day" communication channels are basically "hosted" by the
| company. When you were in the office, you could easily walk over
| and have a private conversation with someone. Now it's done over
| communication lines that the company pays for. I wonder if that
| will have a long-term effect on our ability to talk critically
| about our workplace with coworkers.
| chadlavi wrote:
| Rule number zero of organizing in the workplace: never use
| company resources to do it, they'll get you every time
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| California DoL is going to be very interested in these
| proceedings. Of course Apple has never been one to shy away from
| illegal wage fixing.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I have a few thoughts about this- 1) I dont think it is
| 'professional' behavior to discuss everyones business on a slack
| channel
|
| 2) I dont necessarily agree with equal pay for each job title. I
| think it should definitely be in a ballpark based on job
| function. I've worked long enough that I've seen equally titled
| employees with VASTLY different work outputs. That isnt to say
| that the less productive employee was even a bad employee, they
| just werent the 10x employee the other one was. I dont see a
| problem with the 10x employee making more money.
|
| 3) Is complaining on Slack or posting your salary the best way to
| accomplish the goal of equal pay? I don't personally think it is,
| but I am willing to hear counter arguments.
|
| 4) If I were unhappy about my current pay, I would approach it
| much differently. I would first go to my direct manager and tell
| that person I felt I deserved more comp. I would put together a
| list of reasons/accomplishments/justifications for this reason. I
| always keep a journal of what Im working on and try to send a
| list of "working on, completed, to do" so that I have my goals
| set properly. I send that on a regular basis to my manager(But I
| contract so its a bit different than an employee in this regard).
|
| 5) If you still feel like you are under compensated or
| underappreciated, go look for a job. Get an offer. Have leverage.
| You will either get a raise or a new job. Win Win Its frowned
| upon to do this often but I think its better behavior than
| starting a slack channel and asking people to post their salary.
| paxys wrote:
| Everything you mentioned in 1-5 is inherently harder to do as
| an employee because there is a vast information asymmetry in
| the workplace. ICs work on a "need to know" basis while
| managers and HR know everything.
|
| How can you say for sure that you deserve more when you don't
| know how much others in your role are making? Why would your
| manager not simply say no and shut down the discussion? If they
| do offer you a 5% bump, maybe you actually deserve 15%? It's
| like playing poker with someone who sees all the cards. Sure
| they can't beat you if you have a royal flush, but on average
| they will always come out ahead. There's a reason there are
| laws mandating that your employer cannot stop you from talking
| about your salary.
|
| These discussions all serve to give you as an employee more
| data to use in negotiations, and for that they are incredibly
| effective.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I don't see why you can just find a new job and tell them to
| sod off. Sure its not always the right answer to leave and
| try to effect change from within. But if Apple is SOO stacked
| against the employees I am not sure why anyone wants to be
| there.
| sroussey wrote:
| If people are discussing their salaries for equality, then I
| think it's fair for all other employees to comment on wether
| they are actually good and effective at their job. Let
| everyone vote on if they really deserve that salary--or a
| larger one, or a smaller one.
| sagarm wrote:
| The company makes the comp decisions via management, not
| the rank and file employees. They already have information
| about everyone's compensation.
|
| Sharing compensation information with your coworkers only
| puts you on a more even footing when negotiating with
| management. After all you are probably at least somewhat
| aware of your relative productivity. If you and the company
| disagree, you find another job where hopefully you are more
| in sync and everyone is happier.
| pokstad wrote:
| > 3) Is complaining on Slack or posting your salary the best
| way to accomplish the goal of equal pay? I don't personally
| think it is, but I am willing to hear counter arguments.
|
| A slack channel is probably an efficient way to organize other
| employees for collective bargaining. There are already salary
| sharing sites like team blind and levels.fyi
| websap wrote:
| Problem with levels.fyi and blind is that the data is not
| verified. I have higher confidence from internal systems.
| zuhayeer wrote:
| We actually do verify data on Levels.fyi - we collect
| verified proof documents such as W2s and offer letters to
| anchor the self-reported data points.
|
| We also have an exclusively verified data newsletter:
| https://levels.fyi/verified/
|
| Latest issue here: https://email.levels.fyi/t/v/75745b41-86
| 36-4368-9891-3968c4a...
| S_A_P wrote:
| To me this is an issue of scale. A small startup can hand
| pick talented people and pay them the same. Its pretty easy
| to manage employees and validate performance as you approach
| ~100 employees.
|
| Now scale that up to 50k employees. The talent pool isnt
| large enough to have only A players. Secondly in a large org
| you may not want some of the A players available because they
| have a crappy attitude. So what do you do? Hire B and C
| players and hope you can mentor them to a B+ A-. Im still not
| sure they deserve top tier pay, at least at first. If they
| demonstrate improvement then compensate them. Personally I
| think where companies go wrong with comp is that they stop
| rewarding top performers- especially in the IT/DevOps side.
| Ive worked at various companies where the sales and or
| traders that form the business often get large rewards just
| because they are on the income side of the house. IT and
| Development can at best increase efficiency and reduce costs
| but they are always just that, a cost. So short sighted
| managers eventually hit a wall and say no more comp
| increases. Eventually that person leaves when they find a
| better job, and they spend 50-100k recruiting a replacement
| that they have to pay what the existing employee wanted in
| the first place.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| >I dont necessarily agree with equal pay for each job title.
|
| It is absolutely doable though, just with a lot more job titles
| than what we have.
| hbn wrote:
| Give everyone a unique job title, problem solved!
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Just got a role as a Software Engineer
| fc7530c3-5b68-4775-8174-5cd307c2509b. Excited to start next
| Monday!
| amelius wrote:
| People generally have a very good idea about the job of
| their colleagues and how it compares to theirs.
| yreg wrote:
| >Currently, Apple employees have popular Slack channels to
| discuss #fun-dogs (more than 5,000 members)
|
| I can't imagine a channel of that size. Is it an endless flood of
| text like twitch chat? Are there limited aproved submitters?
|
| We have off topic channels with few hundred members and they are
| already a mess.
|
| Also, is everyone within Apple in the same Slack team?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| We have a similar large pets-focused channel at my company and
| it's more like reddit.com/r/aww than a conversation with
| coworkers. I keep it muted, and check in from time to time if I
| need a happy-pictures fix.
| adolph wrote:
| See also:
|
| _Jacob Preston was sitting down with his manager during his
| first week at Apple when he was told, with little fanfare, that
| he needed to link his personal Apple ID and work account._
|
| https://www.theverge.com/22648265/apple-employee-privacy-icl...
| alasdair_ wrote:
| As an aside, Facebook has all employees use their personal FB
| account for work purposes, logins, group memberships etc.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| This story is presents a very distorted view of what Apple
| actually asks employees to do:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28242009
| crb002 wrote:
| Injunction on Apple filed today in my racketeering action
| CVCV043016 District Court for Dallas County Iowa on behalf of
| major shareholder Iowa Public Employee Retiree System. The last
| thing shareholders need is erosion of equity via a massive NLRA
| lawsuit.
| duxup wrote:
| I really think employer hosted employee activism is just ...
| always a problem.
|
| It's a minefield, and one with slack where the employer has all
| that data, what was said, and who... that's just a mess for
| EVERYONE.
|
| >But that rule has not been evenly enforced. Currently, Apple
| employees have popular Slack channels to discuss #fun-dogs (more
| than 5,000 members), #gaming (more than 3,000 members), and #dad-
| jokes (more than 2,000 members).
|
| I would find those more acceptable if I were an employer, even an
| employee.
|
| Edit: I had a bad typo in this post where I said "employee
| hosted" and intended it to say "employer" now fixed, thus some of
| the responses.
| fsckboy wrote:
| employer hosted you mean... i'll delete after you correct,
| cheers
|
| but the apple anti-trust enforcement action I'd like to see
| enforced would be them keeping dad-jokes all to themselves,
| denying competitors the same comic relief
| duxup wrote:
| Oh yes I meant employer hosted.
|
| Man what a terrible typo on my part. TY
| smcl wrote:
| It must've been quite a typo, that comment is still
| underwater after being corrected :-) I upvoted FWIW
| moate wrote:
| Just out of curiosity: what are your thoughts on Unions, the
| epitome of "employer hosted employee activism"?
|
| Of course management is going to be least tolerant of things
| that represent financial risk to them, and there's nothing more
| financially risky than employees realizing where all the excess
| profits go...
| duxup wrote:
| I wouldn't expect an employer to host the union communication
| channels.
|
| Edit: My bad I had a terrible typo in my original post where
| it said 'employee hosted' and not 'employer' as I intended.
|
| I think the folks working towards that stuff would be much
| better served to have their own slack disconnected from the
| employer's systems.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Realistically, discussions about unions and organization
| are always going to need to happen at least partially using
| "employer hosted" spaces.
|
| Whether that means communication that happen in meeting
| rooms, in break rooms, in cafeterias, or over e-mail, Slack
| rooms, or other employer-hosted message boards.
|
| It's important to have union communication spaces _outside_
| the workplace too -- whether at union headquarters, Slack
| rooms, etc. -- but nobody 's even going to find out _about_
| those without discussion and recruiting happening on-site.
|
| If employees are allowed to approach each other about
| organizing in a cafeteria or break room or by the water
| cooler (which is critically important), then Slack is no
| different -- the "social" Slack channels are just the
| digital equivalent.
| duxup wrote:
| But those discussions aren't recorded typically...
|
| Slack is, the whole setup is a mess.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think it's at all reasonable to say that a Slack
| channel is an "equivalent" to spreading information by
| ad-hoc meetings in the cafeteria/break room/near the
| water cooler.
|
| I can reach all people in a Slack channel by spending a
| few seconds typing something. Reaching any large number
| of people through chance encounters in an office on break
| time requires perhaps hours of work spread out over days
| or weeks. And you'll never reach employees who work in
| another location if you can only physically talk to the
| ones who work in your office.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| I think there is a difference in the slack channel being
| hosted on Apple's Slack compared to an employee telling
| another about their independent Slack instance & channel
| over an existing Slack channel and/or DM.
| moate wrote:
| I think you should look some of this stuff up. Your
| expectations aren't really in line with the law.
|
| As someone else has posted, once you let a little non-job
| related material in ("cute doggo pics!!!") you're almost
| always allowing labor discussions in as well. A strong pro-
| labor NLRB would (and possibly will) be all over this
| action.
| duxup wrote:
| I know of the protections, they're not as absolute / sure
| to include a slack channel.
| mountainb wrote:
| Right, this is why lawyers are renowned as the fun
| police. The correct action from the perspective of the
| interests of the shareholders would be to ban the dog
| chat and the dad jokes.
| tibbetts wrote:
| Only if management and the shareholders are ignorant and
| short-sighted. Discouraging union activity with a stick
| is not a long term win. Maybe with a carrot, or maybe
| embrace it.
| nostromo wrote:
| I think the challenge is most of our major tech corporations
| love to publicly tout their progressive bonafides at every
| possible opportunity.
|
| Right until it hurts their pocket book that is. Then suddenly
| all of the politics they've been pushing go out the window and
| they want to have an apolitical workforce.
|
| If corporations want to be non-political, they should stay non-
| political.
|
| I've personally become quite cynical about their motives. I
| think these woke tech companies are happy to talk about equity
| and climate because it doesn't cost them anything -- it's
| basically free marketing -- but if their workers organized or
| their taxes were raised, they'd suddenly show their true
| colors.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| You've _become_ cynical about the motives of trillion dollar
| multinational corporations? That should have been the
| default, but better late than never.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Regarding this specific issue, I do not see what paying
| people for what they negotiate has to do with progressivism.
|
| Equity in pay potential is progressive (i.e. not
| discriminating against race, etc), but I do not see why
| everyone should have the same pay. I pay people (and
| businesses) differently based on what I think my second best
| option would cost. Is that not what everyone does?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Equity in pay potential is progressive (i.e. not
| discriminating against race, etc), but I do not see why
| everyone should have the same pay. I pay people (and
| businesses) differently based on what I think my second
| best option would cost. Is that not what everyone does?
|
| People aren't generally advocating for "the same" pay
| (precise lockstep), but broadly _transparency_ and
| auditability. To use Google as an example, roles have
| bands. Two people in the same role aren 't paid the precise
| same amount, but you'll generally know that they'll be +-,
| say, 20%. And someone at L+1 will earn more than someone at
| L.
|
| In other words, there is a fairly straightforward way to
| calculate $$$ given performance review data. So there's
| rules and things work within the rules. This allows
| individuals to see that their performance is getting
| compensated the same as someone else's performance, via the
| same rules. If and when there are exceptions, the employer
| should be able to justify those exceptions. Why is John, at
| L, getting paid more than James at L+1? Because James was
| just promoted, and John has been a top performer at L for
| the last 5 years.
| duxup wrote:
| I agree.
|
| What exactly people mean about pay equity may or may not
| seem progressive ... no matter if they wrap themselves in
| that title or not.
|
| Most people aren't very disciplined about their political
| ideology.
| duxup wrote:
| I don't think it has anything to do with "major tech
| corporations" or even "progressive".
|
| It is anyone once their interests / income matters.
| luckylion wrote:
| > It is anyone once their interests / income matters.
|
| I think the GP's point was that they are dishonest about
| it. They claim that they, unlike others, aren't selfish,
| other things matter more than money etc when in reality
| they don't, and all the talk is only virtue signalling.
| duxup wrote:
| My local mega corp loves to sponsor a local politician
| who believes in "free market" but what they mean is
| legislating a monopoly ;)
|
| It's a human thing.
| elicash wrote:
| For folks who don't know, one thing right out of the union-
| buster handbook is that you first remove the ability of workers
| to organize themselves at work -- and then when they have to
| resort to visiting their co-workers at their homes to organize
| them, you make those home visits an argument against the union.
| duxup wrote:
| I think there has to be a line somewhere between protecting
| employees right to talk about work (that has pretty strong
| protections, even public comments online can be protected
| between employees have been protected) and ... having the
| employer host a slack channel.
|
| What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some
| employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just
| anything bad comes of it?
|
| The employer is by default privy to the whole channel too.
|
| I just think recorded info like this hosted by the employer
| is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be better served
| if the employees ran some channel of their own hosted
| elsewhere.
| aaomidi wrote:
| > What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some
| employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just
| anything bad comes of it?
|
| "We don't condone the existence of this channel, however
| due to labor laws, we can't and won't take action against
| it. If the discussion of this channel moves away from
| primarily being labor and organization related we will
| archive the channel, give all of you access to the archive,
| and shut it down. This is to prevent the harassment and not
| to block organization efforts.
|
| If you feel uncomfortable in this chat, please let us know
| and we can silently remove you from it.
|
| We also encourage employees that want to organize to use
| alternative methods that aren't hosted by Apple."
| chickenpotpie wrote:
| All too often people on hacker news will say "well what
| we're they supposed to do?" and being honest and open is
| always the answer.
| nickff wrote:
| The other side on Hacker News will say 'be open an
| honest', but fail to indemnify the person at hand against
| potential losses. Talk is cheap, unless you're the one
| who has to pay for the consequences.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > What happens if that channel gets really nasty and some
| employees are bullying others (for any reason) or just
| anything bad comes of it?
|
| What if the Earth ended yesterday? It doesn't matter,
| because _it didn 't happen_. Also, that would be a
| disciplinary matter for _those employees_ , not the
| chatroom.
|
| > I just think recorded info like this hosted by the
| employer is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be
| better served if the employees ran some channel of their
| own hosted elsewhere.
|
| Have you ever tried to get your friends to join you on some
| new social or messaging platform? And failed miserably?
| Yeah. Now try getting random coworkers to do it.
|
| The entire purpose of banning this room was to raise the
| barrier against organizing. And it did so effectively.
| elicash wrote:
| You suggest having a line, but as a top-level comment
| alludes to, there historically has been one and it's right
| where the author of this article drew it.
|
| Companies have the right in most circumstances to say "no
| hanging up non-work pamphlets on the bulletin board." But
| once you allow non-work pamphlets, you can't discriminate
| against against these types of issues. That, sadly in my
| view, changed under the Trump NLRB specifically when it
| came to email (which one could argue slack is similar to).
| Though it's likely to change again under Democrats.
|
| By the way, in terms of "bullying" it's worth noting that
| the law protecting the ability of people to talk about
| workplace conditions using company resources like a
| bulletin board or slack channel doesn't have to allow for
| abuse behavior by coworkers. If you're seeking a line, that
| can be it, and it's based in current law, too.
|
| This final comment isn't aimed at you, but I wish the
| "anti-cancel culture" activists took this seriously as a
| free speech issue. This kind of thing is much more common
| and a bigger deal than a select group of folks who have to
| rely on substack for their audiences to follow their
| thoughts.
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| Wouldn't bullying be a reason for discipline regardless of
| what medium is occurred in? That doesn't seem relevant to
| Slack channels about any particular topic.
| thomasahle wrote:
| > I just think recorded info like this hosted by the
| employer is inherently a bad idea and everyone would be
| better served if the employees ran some channel of their
| own hosted elsewhere.
|
| I wonder if the employees would be allowed to set up their
| slack channel elsewhere, or if Apple would prefer having
| control.
| duxup wrote:
| If I'm magically Apple CEO, I want it off my systems so
| some rando manager or VP doesn't go do anything bad with
| that information...
|
| But if I'm 'bad'... I want it.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| it's 2021. There's no reason employees can't meet to talk on
| another platform or around a hashtag or something.
|
| it's a far cry from union busting to ask that you use the
| million tools available, for free, to everyone.
|
| And it's a win-win for the employees - b/c now it's beyond
| the control of the company in question.
| elicash wrote:
| So you're suggesting Apple will allow an email to go out to
| everyone that alerts employees of the EMPLOYEE-hosted slack
| space? Because if not, we're back to having to tell them
| via home visits. Any other method (for example, spreading
| the word in the break room) would get the worker organizers
| in trouble if they got caught.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| you can ask "hey can i have your phone #" and then text
| them. you can ask them "can i have your email" and then
| email them.
|
| people far more innovative than I could come up with
| other methods
|
| I'm all for unionization. But i don't get this forcing
| companies to supply you with the tools to enable you to
| do so.
| elicash wrote:
| "You want my phone number, why?"
|
| "Oh, I'm not allowed to say while on company property."
|
| Yeah, that makes sense.
| vlunkr wrote:
| You could say why... It's logistically and legally much
| more difficult for Apple to control that.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| Have you ever tried to get your friends to join you on some
| new social or messaging platform? And failed miserably?
| Yeah. Now try getting random coworkers to do it. And then
| try doing it without being allowed to tell them about it at
| work, over email, over slack, or over any of the other ways
| you contact your coworkers.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Good thing it's 2021 where opt-in communication at a better
| level of home visits is a click away (literally, they could
| have just made a new Slack workspace and used non-work
| devices to visit it)
| elicash wrote:
| But what you're suggesting is that they'd have to do a
| house visit in order to tell coworkers about this slack
| workspace -- that anything using company resources,
| including company grounds, should be a violation of the
| rights of the company.
| jncdrjn wrote:
| Or you could spend a few seconds Googling your coworkers
| and then you can send them a message on LinkedIn or
| Facebook, or if you're lucky they'll have their email
| address somewhere..
|
| And then once you've told a couple people, the link can
| be spread word of mouth.
|
| It's actually easier today than it was when you had to
| physically go to someone's house to talk to colleagues
| out of band of your employer.
| amelius wrote:
| > one thing right out of the union-buster handbook is that
| you first remove the ability of workers to organize
| themselves at work
|
| Simplest way around that is handing out pamphlets near the
| company entrance/exit containing information about the union.
| And of course you point to non-employer-hosted resources such
| as a member-only forum.
| kelnos wrote:
| Pamphlets? In 2021? Really? I think if the only way labor
| organizers can reasonably notify members and potential
| members of goings-on is via _pamphlets_ , there's something
| wrong here.
| klyrs wrote:
| What are you going to do, ask HR for a list of
| everybody's personal email addresses? Pamphlets seem like
| a pretty reasonable workaround to me. Though, in my
| experience, pamphlets are more of an icebreaker than the
| actual medium of communication. If you're just standing
| around trying to talk to people, nobody wants that. If
| you're holding a binder, or have some pamphlets to hand
| people, they're a lot more willing to talk. As long as
| the pamphlet has a URL or email address, probably a QR
| code, it has a purpose for those who are interested.
| elicash wrote:
| If you mean the parking lot, keep in mind that's a
| contested area that employers have fought very hard to
| prevent workers from using to organize.
|
| If you mean just outside of the parking lot, you STILL have
| issues. Amazon for instance, in their recent organizing
| battle, literally was accused of getting the county to
| change the traffic light timing:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287191/amazon-
| alabama-w...
|
| These issues are not simple. Organizing is hard.
| qweqwweqwe-90i wrote:
| #dad-jokes must be a dangerous place to be. One wrong post and
| you can be cancelled forever.
| adolph wrote:
| No, no, its "and the whole fence goes down"
| malfist wrote:
| You've got quite the victim complex there
| ro_bit wrote:
| What kind of dad jokes do you make?
| duxup wrote:
| I always thought of dad-jokes as inherently clean / punny.
|
| Dude shows up in #dad-jokes to pull some blue / edgy stuff
| I'd be surprised.
| grillvogel wrote:
| im always impressed and surprised about the things that people at
| my megacorp are willing to post in public slack channels
| finder83 wrote:
| Not that I agree with the move, but is that really surprising?
|
| Creating a false sense of camaraderie and family creates a
| culture where people are interested in working and are positive
| toward the company. It increases productivity, makes people work
| more hours, and probably increases tenure.
|
| Talking about pay equity leads to dissatisfaction and likely loss
| of profits as people look for more money, or for different jobs.
| It's not in the company's best interests.
|
| Remember, HR is not there primarily for your benefit as an
| employee. I would say the same about company chat.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| Be woke go broke or at least get some stuff thrown back
| dekhn wrote:
| After watching for a while I noticed that basically the author of
| this article is not really a journalist, but actually a person
| working in concert with apple employees to establish a union.
|
| The articles are written with a clear lack of fairmindedness or
| any attempt at objectivity.
| wil421 wrote:
| I mean it pretty much says so in her bio:
|
| > [name removed] senior reporter at The Verge where she reports
| on labor and workplace organizing.
| mehlmao wrote:
| Does that change the facts? Apple banned a channel discussing
| pay equity, giving the reason that Slack 'must advance the
| work, deliverables, or mission of Apple departments and teams',
| which is clearly being selectively enforced.
| jsnell wrote:
| They appear to have written 200 articles for the site. That's
| some proper diligence to establishing a deep cover as a
| journalist. Their beat is labor issues and workplace
| organization. You generally don't get a lot of company puff
| pieces in that particular area.
| rchaud wrote:
| Is there a reason the employees didn't use a different IM client
| to do this? Pay equity is a serious issue that directly impacts
| the corp's ability to negotiate against their own employees. Why
| give Apple banhammer privileges by discussing it on corporate
| channels?
| jkestner wrote:
| Discovery. Same reason organizers want to work in the company
| parking lot, and the company doesn't want them to.
| duxup wrote:
| I find it strange too.
|
| Even in the context of companies that often have slack channels
| where people discuss all sorts of topics ... it's one I would
| expect many people would want away from the prying eyes of the
| folks who chose to pay them X.
|
| I wonder if there is some expectation / hope / motivation the
| the employer would see the topic and somehow respond? A sort of
| slack channel as a psudo-protest / online activism?
| tsycho wrote:
| Generally, using an internal IM client provides a stronger
| guarantee that all people in the group are employees. This
| reduces the risk of leaking out sensitive info, or the chances
| of a journalist/competitor snooping in, or phishing attacks
| etc.
|
| As such, employers should strongly prefer that such
| communication happens via internal channels. It is the smart
| thing to do, unless you believe that employees would just stop
| discussing these things if you banned them from internal IM.
| But of course, this is Apple.
| advisedwang wrote:
| There's a long case history in front on the NRLB about whether or
| not employees can use employer's resource (ie notice boards,
| email system, slack) for organizing. In general the rule has been
| that if employees can use something for general non-work purposes
| (e.g. setting up a baseball game on the weekend) then the company
| can't stop them from using it for organizing.
|
| However the specifics (e.g. what if there is a policy about what
| topics are OK, but some OK topics are non-work, or what if there
| is a general work-only policy that is selectively enforced
| against organizing) have gone back and forth depending on the
| administration.
|
| Apple's behaviour is probably a result of a 2019 ruling [1] which
| opend the door to this kind of thing. Given that the
| administration has swung back to being fairly labor friendly,
| it'll be interesting if this gets to the NRLB to see if they find
| a way to make this illegal.
|
| [1] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/labor-
| board...
| foepys wrote:
| Meanwhile in Germany an employer has to provide rooms and
| resources for a works council (Betriebsrat) to meet and
| organize, and has to pay all necessary trainings, including all
| related travel expenses.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is Betriebsrate still aren't unions :( Collective
| wage agreements are _rare_ in the tech industry, it 's a real
| shame.
| Glawen wrote:
| It is the same in France, but they are still powerless
| because they are not present on the company's board unlike
| Germany.
|
| In France it is only the government owned companies who can
| strike, strikes in private companies are rare. It only
| happens when they are all fired, but it is too late..
| sofixa wrote:
| > It is the same in France, but they are still powerless
| because they are not present on the company's board unlike
| Germany
|
| Not exactly powerless, some decisions and some changes need
| to be accepted by the worker's councils. But they cannot
| make decisions and force the company to go in a certain
| direction.
| realityking wrote:
| Grand parent might refer to the fact that German
| companies with > 2000 employees have to have a
| supervisory board where 50%-1 vote a held by
| representatives of employees:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitbestimmungsgesetz
|
| Interesting side note, in mining and steel companies by
| law the vote is split 50% between employee and owner
| representatives and there's a neutral member as tie
| breaker. This is often justified by safety arguments but
| actually stems from the WW1 and WW2 experience of these
| industries were pushing for war (good for business) and a
| neutral member was thought to temper these tendencies.
| luckylion wrote:
| That's _after_ the employees vote though, and only if the
| unions win the vote. The employers do not have to provider
| resources before the vote has been done.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| I've been wondering why German Software Engineers are paid so
| much more.
| foepys wrote:
| Funny that you say that, in fact I was waiting for someone
| to say it, because pay is considerably higher in companies
| with a works council than without. Tech companies are
| famous for _lacking_ works councils.
|
| You can go to your works council and request to see the
| salary and bonus structure for your peers that work the
| same job as you. Exactly the thing that is being shut down
| in the OP.
|
| So instead of making a point about how a works council
| lowers tech workers' pay, you made a point for creating
| them.
| Longhanks wrote:
| No, he makes a point for leaving Germany for higher pay.
| As a talented individual, one needs not rely on unions to
| fight for some mediocre salary everyone gets, one can
| negotiate it on their own and get a salary worth the
| skills.
|
| Talents leaving the country is an actual problem (for
| Germany, not the software engineers), no wonder there's a
| term for the shortage: The famous Fachkraftemangel.
| gruez wrote:
| /s?
| walshemj wrote:
| Don't remember hearing about Rocket Internet firms having
| works council's or recognition agreements.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| The works council system in Germany and Switzerland (and some
| other countries) works a lot better than American unions. I'm
| not sure why. It seems they are more co-operative and have
| fewer BS rules.
| nickff wrote:
| I am not an expert on German unions, but I think one key
| factor is that German unions tend to have company-level
| decision-making and representation. In the USA, it is
| common for unions to be industry-wide, with little or no
| significant company-level decision-making authority.
|
| These monolithic unions strike at one company or another
| according to what will most benefit the rest of the union.
| This means that the union is 'attacking' one company, and
| helping their competitors, subsidizing the costs to members
| at that company with money earned by members from the
| competitors. This is something like blackmail, and is bound
| to cause animosity with management.
| rb2k_ wrote:
| > In the USA, it is common for unions to be industry-wide
|
| A lot Same in Germany for the most part. https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_German...
| nickff wrote:
| Yes, I've read about that, but it seems like those unions
| give each branch/local/company significant independent
| decision-making authority, which is uncommon in top-down
| US unions.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The biggest reason is that in Germany, unions actually take
| part in decisions. It means that in addition to
| representing workers they take the company interests into
| account, after all, employees can't be paid if the company
| doesn't make money. In other countries they can only
| protest and so, they work by opposing management instead of
| trying to find a solution that suits everyone.
| vmception wrote:
| Yeah because it is required for them to be on the boards of
| the big companies too.
|
| The US should play around with board composition from both
| the legislation side, as well as a consequence for all
| fines and settlements and court orders.
| tibbetts wrote:
| Not starting out adversarial with management is a big part
| of it. Unions in the US feel like they need to have strict
| rules because otherwise management will take advantage.
| Management in the US is often very strongly anti-union.
| This is a situation where social conventions and government
| regulation could yield better outcomes than an adversarial
| system. But Americans love adversarial systems.
| mike_d wrote:
| People get really confused when I say I am pro-union, but
| anti-american-union.
|
| Workers deserve representation and protections. But
| American unions are still closely tied to organized crime
| and are effectively a form of rent-seeking (you must pay
| us a percentage of your earnings or you can't work here).
| As recently as 2017 the FBI arrested members of the
| Lucchese crime family and members of the LIUNA Local 66
| for applying a "mob tax" to new construction projects.
| SDNY settled RICO charges against the Teamsters in 2015.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| American unions are far from perfect, but I feel like
| you're drastically understating the good they did for
| American workers during their heyday.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| > the good they did for American workers during their
| heyday.
|
| It's not their heyday anymore, though. We need new
| structures and leadership for labor rights to prevent the
| (admittantly rare) abuses like this.
| nicoffeine wrote:
| You know who else is tied to organized crime? Major
| financial institutions.[1]
|
| Corruption happens everywhere, including every major
| corporation and every government. Singling out unions for
| the same problems is a smearing tactic, not a moral
| stance.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/paul-manafort-money-
| laundering-ar...
| aaomidi wrote:
| Wow this is a fantastic point. Unions in the US are
| always on the defensive.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Why is being adversarial a problem?
| spoonjim wrote:
| Adversarial expectations shift games to zero sum that
| don't have to be.
| topkai22 wrote:
| You can end up with insane rules that ultimately benefit
| no one. An old boss of mine told me about a time he was
| working for a big auto manufacturer. They were rolling an
| update to a major system. It looked like everything went
| well, so people started to go home.
|
| Pretty soon though, the team started to see issues with
| the update, up to and including a major LoB system going
| down. They immediately rolled back the update but found
| they had a problem- they needed some servers restarted to
| pick up the update, and the sole person who by union
| rules could restart the server had left for the day and
| wasn't picking up the phone.
|
| Now there were people who technically had permissions to
| restart the server, but they couldn't cross the union
| rules. They spent over an hour (with the major LoB,
| business critical system down) trying to get in touch
| with the people who were allowed to restart the server
| until they finally convinced the physically datacenter
| ops people (who were still on duty) go physically unplug
| and replug the servers in question.
|
| He couldn't disclose the total cost of the outage, but I
| was lead to believe it was in the millions of dollars.
|
| A functioning owner/management/worker relationship might
| fight over how the earnings of a company might be split,
| and even how or what to invest in, but they should all be
| working to making a company successful as a whole. An
| adversarial relationship prevents the sort of cooperation
| and good-faith assumptions that allow the different
| parties to collaborate and work to everyone's benefit.
|
| That being said, that non-adversarial relationship is a
| two way street, and ownership+management need to be
| participating in good-faith as well.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Honestly, this seems less an example of unions or
| adversarial systems being bad, and more an example of
| what happens when rules designed to protect workers in
| one domain (manufacturing) are applied to a different one
| (software). I see no reason why a union more adapted to
| software development couldn't negotiate rules for on call
| and incident response.
|
| Probably not even unique to unions tbh, arguably the
| entire "waterfall" process was the result of applying the
| processes required to design a physical object to
| software.
| dls2016 wrote:
| Sounds like management dropped the ball of having the
| appropriate number of trained people in that position.
| vdqtp3 wrote:
| Why is it appropriate for a union to determine who has
| the right to accomplish specific tasks (you can't restart
| the server, but you can unplug it or you can plug in a
| lamp but you can't change a light bulb)? That's not a
| management failure. Sounds like they had people who were
| trained and had the technical ability. It was bureaucracy
| that caused the problem.
| jhelphenstine wrote:
| Alternately: sounds like the point about adversarial
| relations stands; a more collaborative culture
| prioritizing the success of the business (the collective
| interest) might have yielded a less expensive reboot.
| lakecresva wrote:
| This sounds more like someone who just wants to blame a
| series of poor management decisions on those damn unions.
|
| It's management's responsibility to make sure they have
| the right people on hand when they roll out an update to
| a major system. It's also their responsibility to come
| out of union negotiations with the right contracts, which
| would have at the very least included some sort of force
| majeure clause to account for technical disasters.
| [deleted]
| kelnos wrote:
| Because going into a negotiation with a belief that both
| parties are expected to be reasonable and negotiate in
| good faith tends to give you better outcomes.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Whenever I buy nearly anything negotiated (car, house,
| boat, large software license, other business deal), I
| simultaneously expect both parties to be reasonable and
| negotiate in good faith, yet all of those single-trial
| negotiations are entirely adversarial. It seems perfectly
| reasonable and fairly efficient to me.
| dhosek wrote:
| I've not done a lot of negotiated purchases other than
| cars, and car salesmen are notorious for negotiating out
| of bad faith.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Think prisoners dilemma. A car /house/boat purchase is
| basically a one-off interaction - you're not likely to be
| dealing with the same salesperson in 5-15 years when you
| buy your next car - so the strategy both parties should
| use is different from the strategy when it's going to be
| frequent repeated interactions as in a workplace.
| louisswiss wrote:
| If you're buying a large software license today -- and I
| bet this holds true for at least _some_ houses, cars,
| other "high-pressure sales situations" too -- the vendor
| definitely won't think of the negotiation as adversarial.
|
| In an unending game of the prisoner's dilemma, either you
| all win or you all lose.
| majormajor wrote:
| I assume car sellers - especially for used cars - are
| negotiating in bad faith. It definitely seems to make the
| process less efficient. Standard advice is to get a car
| inspected by your own mechanic before purchasing. Dealers
| disclosing the results of an inspection and being
| trustworthy would be a more efficient process - it would
| avoid redundant inspections by multiple prospective
| buyers, and it would avoid people wasting their time on
| cars in condition that they didn't want to deal with, and
| it would avoid people who _don 't_ know how to play the
| game getting ripped off.
| foepys wrote:
| The difference is that you buy or don't buy the car if
| negotiations fail.
|
| At work you have or done have a job or even revenue if
| the only thing employer and employees are doing is trying
| to throw wrenches into the machinery to get the upper
| hand.
| dvtrn wrote:
| If you're a worker sympathetic to the organizing effort,
| it's probably not. Depends on your presumed union
| leaders.
|
| If you're in management, being 'the adversary' probably
| means being on the back foot in terms of negotiating and
| probably compliance with local labor laws.
|
| An unenviable place to be (said with a wee bit of
| sarcasm).
| lugged wrote:
| Because it creates a false dichotomy in people's minds.
| It pushes everyone into a zero sum mode.
|
| They have to win at the opponent's expense.
|
| Instead, both parties should be looking for win win
| solutions to all the problems they face.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I've heard union leaders say getting workers to "hate the
| boss" is an important part of organizing. Entering in to
| negotiations where the goal is to punish the boss as
| opposed to getting the best deal for the workers is
| toxic.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Union leaders tend to be rewarded for doing the best
| thing for the union, which is not always the best thing
| for the workers. The principal-agent problem is hard to
| beat.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The quickest way to beat it is to not allow closed shops.
| Give employees the freedom to join a union of their
| choosing, independent of their current employer, and
| you'll fix a lot of (doubtfully all) of America's
| problems with unions.
| newsclues wrote:
| It gets in the way of cooperation.
| mdoms wrote:
| A lot of Americans tend to believe that American culture
| and human nature are the same thing. That humans are
| irredeemably selfish, and that cooperation can only occur
| as an emergent property of pure selfishness and greed.
| Those of us who live in more cooperative cultures know this
| to be false.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Regardless of what the NLRB thinks, we can have our own
| opinions. If employees want to talk pay equity, let 'em.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| I disagree. It is almost as if at work talk on work provided
| media like slack, should be work related. What is next?
| People complain about mutiny related chat rooms being banned
| by the Navy?
| tibbetts wrote:
| Not being allowed to mutiny in the navy is related to the
| whole violence thing. It's also the case that people in the
| navy can't just quit when they want to. I don't think you
| want those kind of rules applying to most workplaces.
| Talking about pay equity is a good thing to be encouraged.
| aaomidi wrote:
| If you're seeing organization as "mutiny" then you're going
| to be able to justify anything the employer does to the
| employee.
| [deleted]
| _vertigo wrote:
| Not comparable.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Discussing salaries is a federally protected activity,
| unlike mutiny.
| tyingq wrote:
| That's a strange analogy. The military can compel you, by
| force, to walk into a hail of bullets. It is not a "job".
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| How is discussing pay not work related? It's a very
| important part of why the employees are working there.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Lol. In what society is pay unrelated to work?
| kelnos wrote:
| Ok, then perhaps Apple should ban the channel about fun
| dogs.
|
| Looking at my company slack, we have a _ton_ of channels
| with a "soc-" prefix, which we use to designate a channel
| that's there for social purposes rather than work. I think
| my employer would have a mutiny on their hands if tomorrow
| they decided to shut that down.
| sxp wrote:
| How much people are paid clearly matches the scope of "...
| Apple business and must advance the work, deliverables, or
| mission of Apple departments and teams,". Paying people
| fairly advances the Apple teams.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Plotting mutiny is a crime. Angling for pay equity is
| legal. The equivalent here would be if Apple broke up a
| #insider-trading Slack channel where people exchanged
| Apple's MNPI.
| tehjoker wrote:
| We're not the military. Employers are an exploiting class.
| Workers must fight for every avenue to organize and
| overthrow the exploiting class to create a democratic and
| equitable society.
|
| In 1917, the military had soldiers councils, turned against
| the Tsarist regime and helped overthrow it with the help of
| armed workers. We're so far from anything like that, we're
| arguing over whether workers should be able to slack each
| other lol.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| Yes, and a massive purge of millions of people began soon
| afterwards in the same country...
| guerrilla wrote:
| You missed the part in between about the Bolshevik coup
| leading to the neutering of councils and de facto banning
| of unions.
| paxys wrote:
| Heck Apple should want employees discussing this stuff in an
| internal channel rather than all over the internet. Employees
| getting together and talking about pay, job titles, tenure,
| team structures, project names, executives and probably more on
| a random Discord server with no way to verify user identity
| sounds like a security nightmare.
| makeva wrote:
| Tbf I'm more surprised that Apple is using Slack internally that
| the fact it is mistreating it's employees
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Well that's really strange I felt sure since their last vapid,
| empty gesture on social media that these mega corporations were
| going to be on our side for the socialist revolution. I was
| willing to overlook their tax avoidance and labor exploitation,
| but this!?
| delaaxe wrote:
| Apple uses Slack??
| saagarjha wrote:
| They've been on it for a couple of years.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Yes.
| davidsawyer wrote:
| I've got to imagine most of the big companies do at this point.
| Amazon uses Slack as of about a year ago.
| dekhn wrote:
| google tried to prevent teams from using slack "for security
| reasons" but then deepmind got an exception, and enough
| people had to join slack groups for external work
| collaborations, but I don't think the leadership ever
| explicitly sanctioned slack as an officially supported
| internal mechanism.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Did you think they use group Messages rooms for comms?
| amelius wrote:
| Apple probably even uses Windows, for those 3D modeling
| workstations.
|
| "Made in China. Designed in California on a Windows PC."
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Most likely, since even fully loaded Mac Pros are dogshit for
| creatives.
| [deleted]
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Stupid, stupid, stupid. That channel could have been a goldmine
| for HR to assess morale and to get candid basic feedback about
| compensation. But sure.
|
| Do you want employees to start talking work related stuff on
| encrypted messaging apps on their personal (or burner) phones?
| This is how you get them to start doing just that..
| nullc wrote:
| Flashback: From 2005 to 2009 Apple was running an illegal wage
| fixing scheme and using threats of demolishing competitors with
| patent infringement lawsuits when they stated they didn't want to
| participate because the scheme was illegal.
|
| Apple eventually had to pay out in a settlement a tiny fraction
| of what they stole from employees, so there is little incentive
| to engage in other blatantly illegal acts against their
| employees-- much less in activities which are arguably just
| inside the line of legally permitted.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| This should be on the top of every FAANG comp thread. We must
| never let this be memory-holed.
| smoldesu wrote:
| >"It sure is very convenient for Apple that these Terms of Use
| that they wrote are extremely useful for crushing free and open
| communication among employees," one source says.
|
| >Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from
| The Verge.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| Can't for a year and a half of acting as though establishing
| Slack channels will serve as some proxy for whether a company is
| dedicated to pay equity. Will totally distract everyone from the
| underlying question.
| theteapot wrote:
| What they should do is, anyone who's deemed to be being unfairly
| paid too much should have that amount deducted from there pay and
| diverted to community programs, or actually paying off some
| taxes.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Slack channels for activities and hobbies not recognized as
| Apple Employee clubs or Diversity Network Associations (DNAs)
| aren't permitted and shouldn't be created.
|
| Clearly the solution is to have an "LGBTQ+ and pay equality"
| channel.
|
| /s if it isn't obvious.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Apple actually already nixed an employee run pay survey because
| it collected diversity data. Their argument was that while
| collection and discussion of pay is protected, collection of
| (opt in) gender and race etc. Data is not.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| you "/s" but it would work.
|
| The folks that work HR would explode like robots being hit with
| Kirk spouting intentionally irrational and contradictory
| statements.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Make that "SLGBTQ+ and pay equity" so you're fully inclusive
| and that's a solid option :)
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| And "pets club" (all inclusive)
| goatcode wrote:
| Selective enforcement's a pain, isn't it.
| ankushnarula wrote:
| These aren't factory line workers -- these are highly compensated
| "employment at will" knowledge workers at one of the most
| prestigious employers in the world. With Apple on your resume,
| you can likely apply for a job at many firms who will compensate
| you much more than Apple. A typical skilled knowledge worker who
| feels underpaid would look for opportunities elsewhere and either
| leave or leverage an offer for a raise --- unless of course they
| were not really skilled and/or they had other motivations.
|
| Also, these demands for pay equity from knowledge workers (and
| their leaks to tech media activists) will almost certainly
| incentivize and drive employers to increase hierarchies and
| divisions in their organizational structures. Can you
| legitimately complain about pay equity when your job is unlike
| anyone else's job in the org chart?
| muricula wrote:
| You have to learn what your skills are worth by asking others.
|
| It doesn't make a difference if you're "at will" or factory
| line or whatever.
| ecnahc515 wrote:
| Not everyone at Apple is a high compensated IC. A lot of them
| are retail workers.
| tomp wrote:
| One of this channels can lead to a lawsuit. Guess which one.
| moate wrote:
| Any, depending on content! If you don't think "doggo
| discussion" is a liability, you don't understand how passionate
| people get about dogs.
| jhayward wrote:
| I once made the mistake of making an offhand remark about
| people "aren't sitting around watching the dogs channel" in a
| meeting.
|
| Oh, did I get some dirty looks from that ill-considered
| thought that was spoken aloud.
| mountainb wrote:
| Trick question. It's all of them. All the stupid chats are
| subject to discovery.
| tomp wrote:
| Sure, but some are more risky... The company I worked for,
| set the retention policy of the #general channel to 1 week
| _two days after_ a discussion of racial /sex biases during
| hiring...
| [deleted]
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